Posts Tagged ‘farm subsidies’

This week I’ve joined a number of food system leaders at the New York Times Food For Tomorrow conference, where the role of public policy in the food system has been a recurrent topic. Public policy is about directing public resources to support the public interest. It is for this reason that this weekend I joined Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan and Olivier De Schutter in calling for a better way for this nation to manage its food and agriculture system. Read More

The taxman cometh. At my house, the 1040 is signed and the check is written, joining millions of others in the mail this week. Recently, the U.S. Treasury Department reported that improvement in the U.S. economy is leading to rising revenues from federal taxes. But just what are our tax dollars buying? Read More

The current farm bill debate is unprecedented, shaking to its very foundation the powerful alliance of commodity and food stamp interests that has driven farm bills for decades. The failure of the House to include a nutrition program in its version of the farm bill, while lavishing public monies on farmers to encourage commodity crop production, is the height of hypocrisy…and mean-spirited as well. Read More

I just returned from another weekend in New York—as on the last trip, I did a lot of walking and eating.

One of my favorite discoveries this time was the Chelsea Market. One hundred years ago, this sprawling warehouse complex was home to the National Biscuit Company’s bakeries, and birthplace of the Oreo cookie. Today, it houses a wide variety of food purveyors, many of them focused on bringing locally produced ingredients to New Yorkers’ tables. Read More